


Carry It With You

by inelegantly (Lir)



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Baseball, Bonding, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Dreams vs. Reality, First Meetings, Isshu-chihou | Unova, Jouto-chihou | Johto, Kalos-chihou | Kalos, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 01:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5951043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/inelegantly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, Abe traveled clear across the world for baseball, from Goldenrod City in Johto all the way to Unova's Nimbasa City. And for a while, Abe played baseball happily with his team in Nimbasa's Stadium. </p><p>Abe doesn't play baseball any more. </p><p>Now Abe stocks airplanes with goods for Mistralton City's Cargo Service. It isn't a bad life, and Abe isn't dissatisfied with it. Not until another boy flies in on one of Skyla's planes, windswept and eager and looking to meet the gym leader, at which point Abe realizes there may be more to life than simply fulfilling a role as a cog in a cosmic machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry It With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ideallyqualia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideallyqualia/gifts).



> This isn't the be-all, end-all of how I feel Abe and Mihashi would be in a pokemon AU, but it's a version that allows me to tell a story about baseball, and bird pokemon, and bonding over little things. It's a story I wanted to tell. I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

It's early still when the plane touches down, the sky above Mistralton City only just brightening with the pink-tinged light of dawn. Abe stands on the asphalt as he watches the airplane taxi down the runway, well aware that he's safely past the point where it will coast to a stop. He's been working for Mistralton's Cargo Service for three years now. He knows the routine.

Behind him, Abe's machoke is shifting packing crates, helping to bring out the day's shipment of goods amidst a bustle of other pokemon behaving much the same. Abe tips one hand up above his eyes, shading them against the glare from the rising sun where it glints off the plane's metal body. He's not the sort of person who flies off to places on a whim. But airplanes can do that, and even after three years in Mistralton, Abe can't help thinking they look like freedom. 

Sometimes Skyla rushes out of her gym in a rustle of loose fabric and with one of her flying-type pokemon flapping mightily overhead, marching right up to the spare plane where it huddles in waiting just off the runway. Abe might not rush off on a whim, but Skyla does. Maybe it's something about being a pilot. Maybe Abe should have considered a job like that, instead of wasting all his dreams on a voyage from Goldenrod City, all the way across the world to Nimbasa with his glove clasped in one fist and a baseball gripped in his opposite hand. 

He'd had a good run of it, playing in Nimbasa's stadium. For the sake of his teammates, Abe carries no regrets.

The cargo hatch opens on the plane, but at that point Abe is turning away. Machoke has brought out a half dozen crates of vegetables and produce, leaving Abe to check over their shipping labels and ensure that everything is in order. It's familiar, habitual, shifting goods about like puzzle pieces into their places, and Abe tells himself that he doesn't miss being in charge of anything greater. From his catcher's crouch, he could dictate the entire flow of a game with just a few calls; now Abe dictates the flow of goods across Unova, though his role is more that of a cog worked into a machine than a leader with any authority. 

When Abe looks back up, one of the crates slid onto a dolly and held steady with his foot, an unfamiliar someone is walking down the ramp from the cargo hatch. He's a slight, slip of a boy, narrow limbs held at angles like his elbows are straining to become wings, and Abe thinks, _this is different._

It's not very often that they get passengers in on the planes, not when Mistralton's business is shipping. 

Abe leaves the dolly where it stands, though his machoke makes a grunt of inquiry at his retreating back when he does, and walks across the asphalt toward the plane. The captain has come out of the cockpit to speak with his passenger, but he offers only a few words and a shake from his hand before he's departing toward the city proper. When Abe reaches the bottom of the ramp, the stranger is standing alone. 

"Hey," Abe says, and stops, shoving his fists deep into the pockets of his coveralls. He's made it this far, but now that he has he's lost all sense of what he meant to do. 

The stranger startles, jumping an inch off the ground like he means to take flight, and spins around to face Abe directly. His straw-colored hair is windswept, blown across his forehead by the breeze that courses constantly down the runway, tufts of it standing up at odd angles. His eyes are wide and bright, lighting on Abe with a strange sort of recognition. 

"Oh!" the stranger exclaims. "Did I... I mean... Hello?" 

Abe coughs, the better to cover up the laugh he's surprised has risen to stick in his throat. It's too early, and he's weary, worn down by days and months and _years_ of working, performing in a job that provides him little challenge but much security. He's not dissatisfied with his life. He's never really thought anything was missing. 

"You waiting for anything?" Abe asks, gruffly. "We don't really get visitors by way of the planes, and we've got to start loading things up from where you've come out of." 

"Oh... No," the stranger says, sounding a little lost. "It's just, it's a little early to be going to the gym, don't you think?" 

"Is that what you came in for?" Abe asks. "Most trainers take the road." 

"I wanted to see what it was like, flying in a plane. I've only ever flown on my pokemon before." 

Abe pauses, remembering how it felt to have his noctowl ferry him around, her claws caught tight in his clothes and her beak falling open like she was laughing, screeching her delight to the sky. He doesn't fly with his pokemon these days. He's too big to go dangling from her claws like a child, and doesn't like to weigh her down with such a burden on her back. 

"It might be a little early for the gym," he concedes after a pause. "But there's a pokemon center, if you want somewhere to wait that's out of the wind. A lot of people come through there. Or if you come to the Cargo Service building a little later, there'll be people there, too." 

"Really!" the stranger exclaims, his eyes brightening and his face cracking wide with a sunny smile Abe swears he can feel radiating its happiness over his skin. "I wasn't really... Sure what else to do. Thank you!" 

It's only a small suggestion, Abe wants to say. Nothing worth so warm a response. But he bites the words back behind his lips, and finds them tugging up slightly in a paler smile of his own. "I don't mind. Better than you hanging around here and getting run over by one of the dollies. Hey — you don't, I mean... What's your name, anyway?" 

"Mihashi!" he boy says, still smiling too brightly, blindingly. Something in Abe wants to pull his hand up like he'd done for the plane, cover his eyes against the glare. "Mihashi Ren. What's yours?" 

"Abe," Abe tells him. "It's nice to meet you." 

"I-It really is!" Mihashi agrees, stumbling over his words with a haste born from eagerness. 

Mihashi sticks out his hand and after a moment it registers with Abe that it's meant for a shake. He grips the other boy's warm, soft palm, squeezing it decisively. He can feel all the bones in Mihashi's slender fingers but somehow, his hands don't feel nearly as fragile as they look, and there are calluses along his fingertips. 

"Thanks again!" Mihashi says, taking a step off toward Mistralton City proper. "And... Um... Abe? If you come by the pokemon center later, would you, maybe say hi?" 

"Yeah," Abe says, almost despite himself. "When I get off work. Maybe I will."

* * *

Abe thinks it's just something he's said, that morning, when he promises to meet Mihashi after work. It's politeness; he's never been outright rude to anybody while he's on the job before. But once all the goods are stowed and the Cargo Service building is swept out and the equipment is put away for the day, once Abe takes off his hat and his coveralls and changes into casual clothes, once he's done all that, Abe can't help but consider really doing it.

His feet lead him across the city to the familiar, white-and-red walls of the pokemon center, and though he stands outside for a long minute considering the weight of his decision to meet a stranger for — what? Snacks? Lunch? They never talked about any intentions. Even while Abe does that, he's always certain he'll head inside. 

Mihashi's head is unmistakable, flyaway hair sticking up in all directions. It cranes about at the sound of the door.

"Abe!" he exclaims, bolting up from the seat he'd taken, away from the nurses and well into the visiting area. "You came!" 

Abe shrugs, hooking his thumbs into the belt loops on his jeans and realizing, dimly, that he misses the familiar deep pockets of his coveralls. He can't remember the last time he's met up with someone casually, just to talk or to spend time together. He can't remember bothering to exist outside his work clothes, not really. 

"Did you make it to the gym?" he asks, pushing aside his thoughts. "It's after noon. Not really early any more." 

"I, uh..." Mihashi starts to say, glancing away and wringing his hands in front of himself. "That is to say, um. No." 

"Why not?" Abe asks, not considering whether it's rude. "You're going to challenge Skyla for her badge, right? Not really any point in waiting around to get better for it, either you have what it takes to beat her or you don't." 

"That's, um, I'm actually..." Mihashi says, swallowing quickly before he resumes. "I'm not here to have a gym match. I only wanted to see the gym." 

"To see..." Abe echoes, his lips beginning to purse into a frown. "Didn't realize there was anything that special about it." 

"I wanted to meet Skyla," Mihashi whispers, not quite meeting Abe's eyes. "There are gym leaders in Kalos, but they don't like bird types. She's... That is..." He trails off again, shrugging vaguely. "I wanted to meet her." 

"Well, you're not going to manage it sitting around in here," Abe says. "Come on. I bet no one is even having a battle right now." 

"Come on — what?" Mihashi echoes. 

"Come with me," Abe clarifies, reaching out and grabbing Mihashi by the hand without thinking about it. His fingers are clammier than before, and Abe tugs at them, no-nonsense in his leading. "Let's go ask for Skyla." 

For a moment Mihashi pulls back against Abe's grip, trying to draw his arm in against his chest. But Abe is squeezing his hand quite firmly, insistently, and after another handful of seconds the tension in Mihashi's body goes limp. His arm drops back to his side, and his fingers curl closer against Abe's. 

"Okay," he says. "Okay." 

Abe gets as far as leading Mihashi out of the pokemon center before it occurs to him that maybe it's weird, taking Mihashi by the hand like it's any of his business. He drops it again before they've gone more than a half-dozen steps but he can still feel the roughness of Mihashi's fingertips pressing against his palm, squeezing his hand back as Mihashi gives his agreement.

* * *

When they walk into the gym it's full of traffic cones and yellow-striped barriers, the entire building vaulted like an aircraft hanger and with arrows painted on the floor giving arcane directions. Mihashi stares about at everything, eyes popped wide and mouth only just hanging open, but Abe has seen the place enough times before that he can't be bothered with gawking.

One of the pilots is coming out from a lane leading deeper into the gym and Abe stops him with a hand on his arm, asks him casually enough, "Is Skyla in? Is she busy?" 

The man purses his lips, giving the question a moment of thought. He doesn't appear surprised by it; anyone who lives in Mistralton for any length of time meets Skyla sooner or later, and isolated though Abe might be from the city's community at large, Skyla is not entirely a stranger to him. 

"She shouldn't mind the company," the pilot decides, after his moment of thought. "She's in the back." 

"Mind if we take the low road?" Abe asks. 

The pilot laughs. "Had enough of Skyla's cannons your first time through, my boy? Don't worry, the door to the maintenance passageway is open. No one will mind if you use it." 

While they're speaking, Mihashi glances back and forth between them, eyes still wide but mouth pressed shut. He waits until the pilot has clapped Abe on the shoulder and continued out of the gym before grabbing Abe by the hand all on his own, leaning in close with an inquisitive, marveling look on his face. 

"Are you friends with the gym leader, Abe-kun?" Mihashi asks. Then, after another moment, "And what are the cannons?" 

"Skyla has some interesting ideas about transportation," is all Abe says, using the hand Mihashi has given him to lead them farther into the gym. 

They edge past the first cannon posted on the ground floor, ignoring the stairs that would take them higher into the building in favor of a metal door set into the metal wall that Abe knows he never would have seen if he hadn't been taken through that way before. His fingers catch against the handle, pulling it out from where it lies flush against the cool metal of the portal and opening the way to the maintenance passageway beyond. 

"Let's go," he says to Mihashi. 

"In there?" Mihashi asks, face scrunching doubtfully. "I didn't think a gym for flying-type pokemon would be like this. It's really dark..." 

"Don't worry," Abe says gruffly, reaching inside the passageway and slapping a switch set into the wall. "There's lights. They're just kept low most of the time, I guess. For when nobody is in here." 

Mihashi seems to accept that, and they walk together down the narrow metal hall deeper into the bowels of the gym. Past a point they reach a staircase and begin to climb, turning on the landing and mounting another set of stairs. When Abe pushes open the door at the other side, they emerge onto a platform high inside the gym building. 

"Abe!" a bright, high voice exclaims, calling both his and Mihashi's attention to the body perched above them atop the last of Mistralton Gym's infamous cannons. "Fancy seeing you here!" 

"We came to see you," Abe says, offering Skyla a shrug. 

She hops down from the cannon, the long tails of her hair bobbing with the motion even as her boots find easy purchase on the platform's floor. She flashes them both an eager grin, and then a wink, straightening into a casual standing position. "Are you here for a match, then?" 

"I don't think machoke would like it," Abe says. "He doesn't like heights. Or birds." 

Skyla laughs, and shakes her head, but takes the rejection at face value. "No one's come for a match in days! I'm getting bored, you know. My pokemon need to stretch their wings." 

Abe shrugs again, and glances sideways at Mihashi. He's silent but his eyes are just as wide as ever, darting from Skyla, to Abe, and back to Skyla again, taking in everything that's coming to pass before him. The look of wonderment upon his face is utterly transparent, and for a moment Abe feels a pang of — something, he's not really sure, but it aches in his chest with startling sharpness. 

"My... Friend, wanted to meet you," Abe points out, remembering himself. 

"I-I'm Mihashi!" Mihashi blurts out suddenly, at a volume too great to be entirely comfortable indoors. But the gym has funny acoustics, and his voice dissipates easily into the open space. "I really admire your pokemon!" 

Skyla's eyes go wide for a moment, before she blinks, and then smiles. "Do you like flying-types?" 

Mihashi nods his head, four quick bobs in such rapid succession that Abe feels dizzy merely watching. He shoves his hand down toward his belt, plucking off a pokeball and pressing the release. The pokemon that emerges flutters up to his shoulder, the little fletchling bobbing its head back and forth between two strangers it's never seen before. 

"Oh, what a dear!" Skyla exclaims, leaning forward toward Mihashi and his pokemon. "From Kalos, I take it?" 

Mihashi nods, modestly, and ducks his head. "He's one of my best friends." 

"I've never seen a talonflame in person before," Skyla admits, her voice going soft and almost wistful. "Maybe your fletchling will grow up to be one of those, one day." 

Mihashi turns pink, and glances away. "Maybe," he says. "If he wants to." 

Skyla smiles, and Abe realizes all at once why Mihashi's grin was so familiar. It's just like hers, two birds of a feather, flashing funny little grins at each other as they each glance sideways at the little bird pokemon preening himself on Mihashi's shoulder. 

Just when Abe thinks he's off the hook for the conversation at large, Skyla rounds on him, blue eyes bright with intention. "And where is _your_ pokemon, mister? The other one, not your machoke who doesn't like heights." 

Dutifully, Abe pulls out his pokeball, and releases noctowl into the open air within the gym. She screeches once, making a lap around the platform, powerful wings beating heavily and stirring the air enough that Abe and Mihashi's hair ruffles and the tails of Skyla's blow in the breeze. Then she finishes her loop, and swoops around to land heavily on Abe's shoulder. 

"There's a dear," Skyla says again, leaning in to fuss happily over Abe's pokemon. "There's a handsome bird." 

Noctowl puffs up her chest proudly, familiar enough with Skyla's praises after the handful of other visits Abe has made to the gym during the past few years. He wouldn't ordinarily say that he and Skyla are friends, but he's had noctowl since she was a hoothoot and he a little boy in Johto, and when he first arrived in Mistralton, something inside him just knew they had to come. They had to visit the gym where noctowl's brethren swooped about and fought valiantly in defense of the badge, and from that very first visit, noctowl was taken with Skyla. 

"I didn't know you had a flying-type pokemon," Mihashi murmurs from beside Abe. 

Part of Abe wants to say, you didn't ask. You didn't even know me, let alone what sorts of pokemon I might choose to raise. But it's rude, and the part of Abe that rankles with combativeness isn't clamoring loudly enough for him to follow through on such comments. He shrugs instead, and reaches up to scratch beneath noctowl's chin with his own rough fingers. 

"She's kinda why I came here," Abe says, though he isn't sure he means to admit it. "Don't really know why I stayed." 

"Maybe the mountain air agrees with you," Skyla puts in, along with a high, teasing laugh. 

Abe only shrugs again, not wanting to bare himself any further than he's done already. "Doesn't disagree with me. And my pokemon like it." 

"So do mine," Skyla agrees, her hands coming to rest at her waist. "Something about the place." 

"Can I..." Mihashi pipes up, rising on his toes so that his fletchling peeps softly as his wings flick. "Can I... See them? Your pokemon? That is... If you don't mind." 

Skyla's expression softens, and she plucks up one of her own pokeballs from where it had been stowed. "I did say they needed to stretch their wings, so it can't hurt!" 

With a flash of light, a graceful swanna emerges into the air, flapping her wings slowly to keep herself aloft directly over them before coming to roost on the platform. Her long neck curves back against her body, head tilting up to peer inquisitively at first Abe, then Mihashi. Mihashi stares right back, eyes bright, lips again pulling up into a wondering smile. 

"She's lovely," he murmurs. 

"And she knows it," Skyla agrees, happily enough. "She's just the company a girl could ask for." 

Swanna trills contentedly at the praise and bumps her head against Skyla's thigh, rubbing her soft feathers against her trainer's skin. Skyla reaches down, scratching gently behind the fluffy ear tufts atop her pokemon's head. When Abe glances to the side, he notes that Mihashi is still staring, expression a beatific blend of joyfulness and awe. 

"Is this what you came for?" Abe murmurs, doing his best to keep his voice low. 

"Yeah," Mihashi murmurs back. "These are the pokemon I wanted to see." 

His gaze darts up to Abe's shoulder for a moment when he says it, eyes meeting noctowl's and encouraging her into a low, approving hoot. Abe's cheeks heat briefly, but he tells himself to ignore it. It's not like it's really praise, not for him. 

"If you ever want a match," Skyla says, leaving off petting her pokemon and leveling Mihashi with an appraising look. "I'd be happy to hold one with you." 

"M-Maybe," Mihashi says, swallowing once and clearing his throat. "Maybe I could do that. Some day." 

"I'll be waiting," Skyla says. 

Abe glances back and forth between them, and discreetly taps noctowl's pokeball against her chest. She disappears back into it with an understated flash. He reaches out, taking Mihashi again by the hand. 

"Come on," he says. "You saw what you came for, let's leave her to train."

* * *

Outside the gym the sky is bright and blue, only a few pale wisps of clouds floating along just above the tree line. A breeze blows by them, and Abe takes in a deep, steadying breath.

He feels like he's done something momentous. He tells himself, it's really nothing. 

"Your fletchling," Abe says, as he and Mihashi walk off toward the runway on the other side of the city. "It's a Kalos pokemon — you're from Kalos? I mean, you came all the way from Kalos?" 

"Y-Yeah," Mihashi says, ducking his head in embarrassment. "Is that... Is that weird?" 

Abe shrugs, kicking his way along the coarse, close-cropped grass that grows beside the asphalt the planes glide along. "Not any weirder than coming all the way from Johto." 

Mihashi's eyes go wide. Abe barely reacts; it's been half a day at most and already he's getting used to it. Mihashi asks him, "You used to live in Johto?" 

"Yeah," Abe says, and then adds without thinking to stop himself: "Before the league, anyway." 

"The pokemon league?" 

"No, not..." Abe says, trailing off. He stops walking, and Mihashi comes to a stop beside him. They aren't far from the greenhouses where Mistralton's residents grow the produce they're always shipping out to all corners of the continent. It's warm, near all that sun-heated glass. Abe still feels a cool finger of regret stroke its way down his spine.

"Not the pokemon league," he finishes. "The baseball league, in Nimbasa. I used to be a catcher." 

"That's so cool!" Mihashi exclaims, taking Abe utterly by surprise. 

"It's... What?" he asks. 

"That's incredible, Abe-kun!" Mihashi continues. "I used to play baseball, in Kalos. But we didn't have anything like a big league for that, so... I didn't want to give it up, I really liked standing on the mound! I like pitching! But nobody else wanted to play any more, so... I didn't." 

It sounds more familiar than Abe knows how to put into words. So he doesn't try, just stands silently beside Mihashi, looking out at the greenhouses, and the tarmac, and the mountains beyond them, off in the distance and enclosing Mistralton from all sides. He's lived here for three years. It makes the city familiar — it makes him miss baseball, when he hasn't played it for just as long. 

"I guess..." he starts to say, when the silence begins to weigh too heavily on his thoughts. "I guess that's just what happens." 

"What does?" Mihashi asks. 

"Not playing," Abe says. "I mean that sooner or later, I guess you have to stop." 

"Maybe," Mihashi says, voice tinged too-obviously with his doubt. "Or maybe you could start again. I'd like to pitch again." 

"I'd like to catch again," Abe says. "But two people don't make a team." 

"I don't know," Mihashi says. "I was... I was thinking I might stay here for a while? I was thinking my flying-type pokemon would like it here, and maybe... Maybe Skyla could teach me how to be a better flying-type trainer? And I was thinking, maybe, if I'm staying here anyway... Maybe we could play catch sometimes." 

Abe is silent again. He doesn't know what to say. The offer takes him entirely by surprise. 

"Abe-kun?" Mihashi asks after a minute of that. He leans in, nervous, peering at Abe's face like he's trying to decipher the expression. Abe isn't sure he can feel his cheeks. "Is that... Is that okay?" 

Abe coughs, and clears his throat. "I'd like that," he manages, after another minute. 

He's been talking all day, to his coworkers, to Mihashi, to Skyla, but somehow his voice feels rusty. It feels like it hasn't been used for its intended purpose in so, so long, and then suddenly he's speaking for the first time in an eternity. It sounds like he's croaking, but something in his chest has gone and rendered itself impossibly light. 

"Do you... Do you still have a baseball?" Mihashi asks. 

"Yeah," Abe says, and then again: "Yeah, my gear and my glove are back at my house. I could get them." 

"I'd like that," Mihashi says. 

Abe looks out again, at the glass of the greenhouses sparkling in the sun, at the line of trees enclosing the city, at the mountains towering up above everything. He takes a moment to look at the close-fitting place that's somehow become home, never mind that it's squeezed him into a box that feels too small. And then, he lets go of that. 

Abe turns back toward the city proper, where the pokemon center is and where the majority of the houses are clustered, and Mihashi walks with him. After another moment, Mihashi's palm slides in against his. It's warm. Abe smiles. 

It's a little bit late, but he makes himself point out, "I'd like that, playing catch with you, too."

* * *


End file.
